Counting down the top 25 football players in Big 12 history (Nos. 5-1)

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/Staff photos.
THE 25 GREATEST PLAYERS IN BIG 12 HISTORY -- Last year, we gave our best shot and naming the 25 greatest players in Big 12 history, but with another season in the books (and another 12 months to sleep the list), we're back for Round 2. Though the conference is relatively young, the Big 12 has produced plenty of top-end talent that will live on in college football lore for decades. This week, we'll be counting down our list of the 25 greatest players in Big 12 history. Here are the final five, from No. 5 to No. 1.

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/G.J. McCarthy/Staff Photographer.
5. Colt McCoy, QB, Texas: McCoy never won a national title or a Heisman Trophy, but he came within a whisker. Twice. Michael Crabtree's TD with a tick left kept the Longhorns out of the BCS championship in '08, and though UT made it the next season, a freak injury knocked McCoy out for most of the game. Both years, he came within 150 points of taking the Heisman, too. McCoy graduated as the Big 12's No. 2 man in passing yards, TDs and passer rating, and his career completion mark of 70.3% is an NCAA record. Add in his lively legs -- he finished with nearly 1,600 rushing yards and 20 TDs -- and you've got one of the most complete QBs to ever play the game.

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4. Adrian Peterson, RB, Oklahoma: Peterson was once poised to become the greatest player college football has ever seen. His first year, he set NCAA freshman records for yards (1,925), attempts (339), and 100-yard games (11), all of which still stand today. And though Peterson didn't exactly fizzle out, injuries either limited him or kept him out from 11 of his final 26 games at OU. Still, the man nicknamed All Day is top 10 in virtually every conference rushing category, his 130.5 yards per game stands second all-time in the Big 12, and he's one of two Big 12 players to eclipse the 4,000-yard rushing mark in three years or less. Just think what he could've done if he'd stayed healthy.

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/Dave Weaver/AP.
3. Ndamukong Suh, DT, Nebraska: Suh started his career quietly, but when he finally arrived as a junior, he became the most ferocious defender the Big 12 has ever seen. Suh was Nebraska's leading tackler in '08 and '09... as a defensive tackle. He combined for 36.5 tackles for a loss and 19.5 sacks in those years, and he even tacked on three INTs for good measure. Suh tossed 300-pound linemen around like rag dolls and ripped through triple teams like wet paper. He almost single-handedly won the '09 Big 12 title game when he tore UT's O-line to shreds and sacked Colt McCoy 4 1/2 times. He ate barbed wire for breakfast (probably). In short, Suh was a beast.

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2. Ricky Williams, RB, Texas: We can't name every Texas record Williams owns, but suffice it to say that there are 38 of them. Williams possessed the perfect blend of bulk and burst, zipping past LBs and plowing over corners to become the NCAA's all-time leader in rushing yards and touchdowns... for a year, at least. His absurd final two seasons in Austin look like this: 4,017 rushing yards, 52 touchdowns and a 6.3 yards-per-carry average. He tied an NCAA record with 11 games of 200 or more rushing yards. He's the only RB in history to post back-to-back 300-yard games. In '98, he ran away with the Heisman in one of the most lopsided votes in history. Need we say more?

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/Paul Sakuma/AP.
1. Vince Young, QB, Texas: Numbers-for-numbers, Young may not even be the best player in UT history. But VY's stats, while still impressive, just don't do his legend justice. When Young was at his best -- namely, his junior year -- he was arguably the most unstoppable player the game has seen in nearly half a century, and he went 30-2 as a starter while dicing defenses with his legs and arm. During Texas' undefeated title run in '05, Young became the first player to ever eclipse 3,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards in the same season, and his legacy only grew when he carried the Horns to a 41-38 win over USC (capped by Young's TD run with 19 ticks left) in what many call the greatest game ever played.